The present disclosure is related to the field of refrigeration. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to organization of drawers in a refrigeration compartment of a refrigeration compartment of a refrigeration apparatus.
In the restaurant and food services industries, kitchen space can be valued at a premium. In doing so, solutions to improve useable space of refrigeration units are desired. Furthermore, there can be many types of food preparation stations within a kitchen space. Food preparation stations may include grills or broilers, fresh produce slicing stations, and/or sandwich assembly stations. Therefore, refrigeration systems in general must be made in a variety of sizes and configuration in order to adequately provide the reduced temperature holding needs of the kitchen while also conforming to available space in proximity to the station in which the food is used.
Under table or under counter refrigeration systems can be an attractive use of space in a kitchen. However, such arrangements may present challenges for worker access to the food products stored in such a refrigeration unit. Therefore, refrigeration units with one or more drawers within the refrigeration compartment can provide improved worker access to a greater volume of refrigeration compartment within which food may be stored. Additionally, food that has undergone some amount of pre-processing, for example slicing of fresh produce is typically held within a food service tray. Food service trays are generally of regularly sizes and dimensions and used within the food service industry. Such food service trays may be referenced as being “full pan” which may roughly measure 12 inches by 20 inches. Based upon such a general pan size definition, other pans may be made to relative fractional sizes of a full pan, for example a “one half pan”, a “one third pan”, and a “one sixth pan” sizes. Such pans are often our inches deep, while other pans may be have the same length and width dimensions but may have other pan depths. It is recognized that these pan dimensions are merely exemplary and that other pan dimensions may be used in other settings.
In use, a worker may fill an associated pan with the produce either for cooking, sandwich assembly, or with whole or sliced produce. The kitchen may have selected a particular pan size for a particular food based upon relative usage requirements. These pans of food may be stored in drawers of refrigeration units until the entire pan is removed from the refrigeration unit for use at a cooking station or individual portions of food may be retrieved from pan and the refrigeration unit closed to maintain a desired holding environment about the remaining food items. Various embodiments of refrigeration apparatus have tried to improve the accessibility and/or operational capacity of refrigeration units, yet there is still further desirability for systems that enable flexible use and storage of a variety of foods and food containers within a refrigeration unit, particularly in a manner that tallows such flexibility but permits the organized storage of food service style storage pans.